Gregs breaking
by depaul1203
Summary: Post Slow burn Greg falls apart
Breaking point;

Disclaimer: I don't own Flashpoint or the characters. I don't make money on this.

Author's note: I know I have another story but I am at a dead end right now. I will get back to it, but I just watched Slow Burn and just needed to write this. I know we see Sarge acting all happy at the end but there is no way he could be out of his hole he was in that easily.

Team One was worried about Sarge. They kept noticing how tired he looked and how he was quieter than normal. The team would ask if he was okay and let him know they were there if he needed to talk, but the Sarge kept coming in to "keep the peace", no matter how terrible he looked or felt.

Jules noticed one day Greg looked particularly bad: very pale, and he had very dark circles under his eyes. She was standing far enough to watch him without his knowing. Sam walked up to see what she was looking at. Jules pointed to Sarge and said with great concern, "He looks terrible. He's compromising his health. I'm going to go talk to him."

"Good luck," Sam said, because everybody had already tried.

Neither one knew Greg was in a very bad mood.

Jules very slowly walked to the briefing room and asked, "Sarge, are you okay?"

Greg looked up from his paperwork and said nothing. Jules sat down next to him, put her hand on his and repeated herself: "I asked if you are okay."

Sarge yanked his hand away and glared at Jules. "I'm fine," he snapped. "Do you need anything?"

"I just wanted to check to see if you were okay," Jules said calmly.

"I said I'm fine," said Greg. "Nothing to worry about."

"Okay," Jules said, backing off so as not to further antagonize her boss—but she didn't believe him for a second. Instead, she went to the Guys locker room to talk to the boys. She knocked on the door of the locker room, and Sam yelled were dressed so she could come in.

"We have a problem," Jules stated when she entered. That got everyone to stop what they were doing and listen.

"What is it?" asked Ed. "What happened?"

Jules sighed. "It's Sarge. He doesn't look too good. I'm afraid he is going to pass out, but he keeps insisting he's 'fine'."

"I'll go talk to him," Ed said, and walked out. The rest of the team followed a few minutes later.

Ed stealthy walked to the briefing room on the pretext of seeing what the plan was for the day.

"Greg! What's going on today, buddy?" he called out. "You okay?"

Sarge turned around and spat angrily: "Nothing is 'going on'. I am fine. Why does everyone ask me that? Does everybody think I can't do my job? Are you thinking that, Ed? If so, you can deal with it! I'll just leave you to it!" By this time, Greg was yelling and standing up, getting into Ed's face. But Ed was not backing down nor was he about to be goaded into fighting his boss and his friend. He was letting Greg get it off his chest.

The outburst nevertheless shocked Ed, and he tried to defuse what was happening. "Nobody thinks that," he said. "We think you can do your job perfectly well. We're just worried about you. You look exhausted."

Sarge went off again. This time, he shoved Ed. "Back off!" he yelled. "You don't know anything."

Again, Ed did not react. Wordy and Spike moved to help, but Ed used the hand signal that told them to stand down and that it was okay.

Ed kept trying to talk to Greg, but every time he said something, it would set off something in Greg, causing him to grow more irate than before. However, Ed was thinking maybe Sarge going off like this was a good thing because before now, he'd been bottling everything up.

Finally, Greg turned his back and walked over to the windows to look out over the city. His shoulders were shaking because he was crying.

"Greg you are right," Ed said gently. "I don't know what you're going through. I can see you're angry and I do know you're not feeling good right now. But we're here to listen. All we want to do is sit down and talk. Can we do that?"

Greg didn't answer Ed, so Ed took a step closer. He continued quietly talking. Eventually, Ed made it over to his friend's side. He put his hand on Greg's shoulder to let him know he was there for him.

Ed was finally able to get him to sit down with the team to talk. Ed told Wordy to let Winnie know not to sound any hot calls for Team One at that time.

"Is he okay?" Winnie asked Wordy when he'd delivered the message.

"I think he'll be fine," Wordy answered.

In the briefing room, Sarge was sitting down, crying too hard to say anything. Ed continued to sit next to him with his arm around his shoulder. Jules also sat nearby, holding Greg's hand and letting him know they had his back.

Sarge eventually quit crying and looked up to his family and team. He very quietly started to apologize for his behavior, but no one on his team would let him.

Greg started to explain everything that had been going on. More than once, he commented on how tired he was feeling.

After Sarge was done talking, Ed had something to say. "Why don't you take a few days off to get some rest?"

Sarge nodded. "I will be taking a few days," he said. "But I am going home sick."

Ed then sent everyone to go work on other things for a while. Everyone either hugged Greg or put their hand out and squeezed his shoulder to let him know they loved him.

Left alone, Greg and Ed went through plans for the next few days while Greg was out. Ed even hugged Sarge and said he would call him later that night.

Sarge walked very slowly to talk to Commander Holleran about taking a few days off, and Norm granted him a week's leave to get straightened out.

At the end of his break, Greg came back looking better and much more rested, finally able to give his team his all again.

The End.


End file.
